Hypnotic spell for being rich and successful

WHEN Paul McKenna invites people from the audience to go up on stage at one of his sell-out hypnosis shows, there is no shortage of takers. It's good, lighthearted fun, putting them under, making them do things that they'll later regret when they get to see the video.

While his prime time TV slots, theatre appearances and books have propelled McKenna to stardom and made him rich, he is also building a following among the most demanding and discerning folk of all: senior executives at some of our largest corporations.

McKenna, 40, believes he can help business become more successful. Better managers, more efficient, happier and, as a result, richer.

His A-list private clients may come as a surprise to the more conventional batch of smart management consultants all out trying to do the same. Defence giant BAE Systems, Royal Bank of Scotland and T-Mobile are just some of the companies that have hired McKenna over the past couple of years. For McKinsey, read McKenna.

When he goes into a company, he doesn't go in alone, calling on the services of other 'self-help' and 'empowerment' specialists to contribute. It's mind-boggling stuff: under 'McKennsian' theory we can all become 'major shareholders in our own thinking', he pitches.

McKenna knows he can't compete with the array of professional advisers who are schooled in the art of number crunching and statistical analysis. But that is not why firms with household names hire him. They are all trying to tap into the quest for self-improvement.

He turned up with a team of helpers 18 months ago at BAE Systems to train around 50 senior managers in the art of communication and motivation. BAE was paying, he says, to help them improve strategic planning using his own dose of mindtraining models to 'come up with positive futures'.

'It is typical of BAE Systems that we use all sorts of innovative ideas as part of our large programme of personal development,' says BAE spokesman Richard Coltart.

Last year, T-Mobile sent about 100 of its workers from 'right across the board' in the company to one of the hypnotist's external courses, to hone their 'motivation and personal enhancement skills'.

Major City law firm Freshfields also hired him for some training, initiated by one unnamed forward-thinking London partner.

By his own admission, McKenna is no mathematician - he managed a CSE grade five in maths, but got a grade one in his other CSE, art - but his business clients don't need numeracy skills, he maintains, they need emotional literacy.

His team of specialists at Paul McKenna Training include 'happiness consultant' Robert Holden, corporate psychologist Deborah Tom and therapist Beechy Coclough, who has worked with the likes of Elton John and Michael Jackson.

'More companies are more interested in EQ than IQ. It's not just being intellectual but how to operate in the world,' McKenna enthuses.

He is quick, however, to dispel fears that executives will experience a hypnosis-induced trance and do outrageous things if they hire him and his team of mind-doctors.

McKenna became a household name in the 1990s here and in America through TV shows, with his knack of helping people lose their fears on stage and then guiding them into often embarrassing situations. This is all about pushing the mind to unexpected limits, making people believe in themselves, that almost anything is achievable.

'There is very rarely a formal hypnotic procedure, it's mostly in the form of conversation. Hypnosis is a communication skill, not a magic power. It is a therapeutic change in neurophysical states to help you step out of the limitations of mindsets, to get out of the problems you are in,' he says.

We met at his smart, three-storey, Kensington town house. Even if you're not versed in all the schools of therapy and analysis he bombards you with, after barely a minute of his smooth patter - he was Top Shop's first in-house DJ at the age of 20 - and receiving his penetrating stare, it won't matter. Like contestants on his TV shows, you may just start nodding in agreement at all he says and walk away believing you have the power to achieve anything you set your mind to.

'I look at human beings very mathematically and I am like a computer programmer,' McKenna says, explaining his core belief in what he terms neurolinguistic programming, or NLP, pioneered by one of his business partners, Dr Richard Bandler. 'Our brains have programmes run to synchronise actions, from boiling an egg to multi-million pound deal-making.'

It all seems so simple. Pay McKenna to help change your programme and you can make your own destiny as an individual, a manager or a group of workers in a corporation.

Clients pay £900 a head for a seven-day course in NLP from Paul McKenna Training held outside their offices, with up to 500 people mixing from different companies. McKenna also carries out in-house tailor-made sessions for companies.

Firms looking for a cheaper option can always buy his best-seller, Change Your Life In 7 Days, and flip straight to day six, Creating Money, with a guide to 'creating wealth consciousness'.

If there's someone who knows how to make money, it's McKenna. Reports estimate his worth at about £12m.

'That's what they say, but I never comment on what I'm worth,' he says - then makes a note to remind himself to pay off the mortgage on his house.